I’ve watched the Shirley Sherrod story unfold from pretty early on, and the thing that strikes me now, after watching the umpteenth talking head panel about how the USDA, NAACP, and the White House rushed to judgment (on ABC’s This Week) is how the man who pulled the pin on this hand grenade, Andrew Breitbart, is being given a near-total pass. The lion’s share of this shit sandwich, meanwhile, is being eaten by the Obama administration and the NAACP. Even Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, despite all evidence to the contrary, has seen his share fed to the administration by virtue of his underling’s bullying name-drop when ordering Shirley to resign. What the fuck is going on?Continue reading →

The familiar refrain from these armed, conservative opponents of the President is that the 2nd Amendment permits this. Sure, Chris Matthews had a point about the one guy who referenced “watering the tree of liberty,” but that could have meant anything. This is totally not about intimidation.

Still, it made me wonder what the reaction would be like if some Black Panthers showed up to these events with firearms. As fellow displayers of their 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, they could stand right there with their conservative brethren, and perhaps new friendships would emerge.

Then, weather permitting, both sides could engage in a “David Hasselhoff CD Skeet Shoot” to show off their 8th Amendment rights.

Yeah, it would be a moment of great fellowship, I’m sure. Hell, I bet there might even be some beret-exchanging. Most of all, it would be a shining example of Americans putting aside political differences, and finding common ground.

When they finally did ask again, 79% of Americans said they favor a public option.

What hasn’t really changed, and what everyone acknowledges, is that almost everyone opposes the pubic option. That’s the one where the insurance companies have you by the short ones, able to refuse you coverage for a pre-existing condition, deny your services with their own death panels, retroactively terminate you if you get sick and made a mistake on your application, and pretty much just build their profits into whatever coverage you get, because your life depends on it.

The problem is, the public option is the only real solution to the pubic option. There’s no way to pass regulations strong enough to ensure that you don’t end up with cheap, junk insurance that’s already putting people in the poor house (Try to remember the last time your auto insurance paid for anything). The public option will serve as that safety net, and despite even more recent rumblings that it’s been left for dead, the President can, must, and will make sure it passes.

There is mounting pressure from the right to have the President’s special adviser on green jobs, Van Jones, served up on the ol’ Underbus Platter. I say he should promote him. Sure, “Mom Czar” is one idea. He could be in charge of making sure that all Americans at least listen to their mothers, even if they don’t comply.

I think Jones is uniquely qualified for this, having discovered what happens when you don’t read something before you sign it, but I would settle for any promotion.

Jones is the right wing’s current shrieking point, an Obama appointee who is being targeted because his signature appeared on a 9/11 “Truther” petition. At face value, it’s weak sauce, but Jake Tapper and others have added considerable water to the now thin broth.

When I first heard about this, I applied the standard righty litmus test: What if this had been a Bush appointee (perhaps signing a Vince Foster petition?)? I really gave it some thought, and it led me to two conclusions. First, there would have been a round of blog posts on Crooks and Liars, TPM, Huffington Post, et al, but I seriously doubt anyone would have even asked Bush about it. There are a hundred stories like this that never went anywhere.

My second conclusion was that the media plays along because of Bush. They let the worst President in history walk all over them for 7 years, catching on only after the rest of us had moved on. Now, they are applying the level of scrutiny that Bush deserved to Barack Obama. Normally, you would need a reason to give a shit that a peripheral appointee signed a politically charged petition once, but because the media blew it so badly with Bush, the Spidey sense is tingling.

The right, desperate to erase the Bush stain, starts with the assumption that Obama is worse, then builds the facts around that conclusion. They forget that Bush earned his dirty diapers.

The President has taken the path of least resistance in these matters in the past, preferring to let controversial aides and appointees step aside to avoid “becoming a distraction.” Early indications here portend more of the same. While there has been some wisdom to this in the past, I think this time, the President ought to show the shrill wingnuts who’s boss. Hell, make Jones the Gun Control Czar, that’ll show ’em.

Looking at the full transcript, it’s clear that Obama voluntarily brought up the example of having to choose between a surgery and a pill. But he did so as a hypothetical example of difficult decisions about medical treatment for older patients. He was not advocating, much less requiring, bureaucrats to make a potentially life-ending decision for a centenarian.

“I don’t want bureaucracies making those decisions,” Obama said.

Sure, that’s one way to read the President’s remarks. But I read it more as a weighing of the medical risk of a surgery on someone of that age, versus a possibly limited reward in extension of life. Risk dying in surgery to get another 2 years, versus a risk-free year on that pill, you know, a medical decision. Either way, the President was pretty clear.

Tonight, I introduce the postlet. The name might indicate a short blog post, but what it really is is a post that’s short on links and polish, and long on me mouthing off because I am constantly having my time wasted, so I’m really annoyed. I’m also including a random picture, because I like my posts to have a picture, but I don’t feel like thinking of one that goes with this post.

I’m not going to tell you who has been wasting my time today, because I want you to have the fun that comes with those “blind gossip” items, like, “Who’s the blonde starlet recently seen playing nude backgammon with that married entertainment lawyer?” or “What committee has press people who don’t, y’know, interact with the press?”

On a completely unrelated note, someone in the press is finally noticing how awful the $80 billion PhRMA deal is. Except not really. This Fortune article misses everything I pointed out in June, but does point out new awfulness that’s based on details that hadn’t emerged when I wrote mine. So, add this + this. Well, I guess now we know all we need to know about that story.